Ashes to Dust (56 page)

‘Shouldn’t we talk after the
festival?’ said Leifur, who seemed to have sobered up in an instant.
‘I understand there’s a lot on your mind, but now is neither the
time nor the place.’

‘No, Leifur,’ replied the old
woman. ‘You don’t get to decide now. I have something to tell you
and I doubt you’ll be in much of a festive mood afterwards.’

‘I’ll get back into a festive
mood as soon as you clear off,’ mumbled Maria. ‘What’s all
this about, anyway?’ She was clearly not used to people speaking down to
her husband. Leifur grabbed her by the shoulder and she stopped talking.

‘I was in Reykjavik today, visiting a
poor, sick girl,’ said the old woman. ‘My
great-granddaughter,’ she added proudly. ‘I listened to her, and I
was the first adult to do that in a long time.’

Thóra was so unnerved by the
atmosphere in the tent that she instinctively moved the pushchair closer to
Sóley, who was yawning on one of the sofas. ‘What did she
say?’ she asked, when no one else seemed willing to say anything.

The old woman glared at Hjalti. ‘Where
were you when my Alda was murdered?’ She spat out the final word.

Thóra tried unsuccessfully to
understand what she was seeing. Markus’s son stood gaping at the woman,
then grabbed his father’s upper arm, a look of terror on his face.
‘What does that matter?’ asked Markus, his face bright red.
‘Are you suggesting that my son had something to do with Alda’s
death?’

‘Yes, Markus, I am,’ replied the
woman, as if she were speaking to a child. ‘Hjalti was seen going into
Alda’s house while she was still alive,
then
coming out again after she was dead. He and his car were seen there - though he
was careful to park it some distance from her house.’

‘What rubbish,’ said Markus, putting
an arm around his son’s shoulders. The boy appeared completely
bewildered. ‘I should remind you that such testimony isn’t
admissible. Just recently a witness said he’d seen me go past
Alda’s house, or into it. His testimony was so vague that he
couldn’t even remember whether I was coming or going when he supposedly
saw me.’

‘We’ve got more than just a
witness,’ said the old woman. She stared fiercely at Hjalti. ‘I
should kill you, boy. It’s what you deserve. I’ve sat at home and
thought about what would be the best way to do it. I’d make sure
you’d endure the same agony you put my daughter through, but I’m
too old.’

‘I think that’s quite
enough,’ interrupted Thóra. Until now she’d been too
surprised to intervene, and everyone else appeared to be struck dumb.
‘Wouldn’t it be best for you to speak to the police if you think
you have information about this crime? This is not the proper place for
it.’

‘I’ve already done that,’
said the old woman, with a thin smile. ‘Gudni is on his way. At first he
wanted to wait until tomorrow, but he soon changed his mind when he heard what
I knew.’

‘What do you know?’ shrieked
Hjalti. ‘You can’t know anything.’

‘You should clean out your car
better,’ said the old woman, still glaring at him murderously.

The boy flinched. ‘What do you
mean,
my car?’ he asked.

‘You opened your car door as you were
leaving, and a credit card receipt blew out. It got caught in a bush and the
girl who was watching you went and got it. I
had
 Jóhanna
look on the bank system to see who the card belonged
to.’

Hjalti moaned something and his father tried
to calm him down. ‘Don’t worry about this, this is bullshit.’

‘Do something, Leifur,’ pleaded
Maria tremulously. ‘You can’t let her stand here and say these
things.’

‘I’ll pay you well for that
receipt,’ said Leifur levelly. ‘Neither you or your daughter would
ever need to worry about money again.’

Thóra was about to protest, but
Alda’s mother cut in: ‘What makes you think I’d want your
dirty money? Not everything can be bought. The receipt is not for sale.’

‘Give me the receipt, or I promise
you’ll regret it,’ hissed Markus, advancing towards her. He had
trouble pushing between the sofa and the dining table, not least because his
son was still hanging off him. The boy appeared to be on the verge of a nervous
breakdown. Orri had slept soundly throughout, but Sóley was taking
everything in, wide-eyed.

‘I couldn’t give you the receipt
even if I wanted to,’ said the old woman happily. ‘I’ve
handed it over to the police.’

Markus’s son started whining over and
over again: Dad, Dad, you’ve got to help me, Dad, Dad. Markus stared
desperately at Alda’s mother. Thóra felt terribly sorry for
him; it was perfectly clear that he loved his son, but he had also loved Alda.
He was truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The tent flaps swung open again. This time
Gudni stood in the doorway, along with another police officer.
‘Hello,’ he said to the group, but he was looking at Hjalti.
‘Hjalti Markusson,’ he said calmly, ‘will you come with us?’

The boy continued to whimper the same words
as he held onto his father. Markus looked down at him, seemed about to say
something, but then loosened the boy’s grip on his arm. ‘My son
didn’t kill Alda, Gudni,’ he said. ‘I did.’

Thóra groaned. What now? Did
Markus think he could take the blame for his son, as his father had done for
Dadi years ago? She wouldn’t be surprised if he were hoping for an
eruption that very night.

Saturday 4 August
2007

‘I didn’t plan for her to die the
way she did. She threw up the drugs, so they didn’t work. I didn’t
have much time and I had to take desperate measures. It was supposed to look
like suicide, and I hoped the Botox in her tongue wouldn’t be discovered.
I left it on her bedside table as a back-up — if the drug was found in
her body, people might well believe Alda had decided to kill herself that way.
Her fingerprints were on the bottle and the syringe. Of course I made sure I
wore gloves.’

in
other words, you went to her house with the sole
intention of ending her life?‘ asked Gudni deliberately.

‘Yes, I did. I had no choice. I had
already tried other things. It was
her own
fault. Of
course I was disappointed when the Botox didn’t work, but I had to do
something. I just wanted to paralyze her tongue. One always hears of people
choking on their own vomit. It was supposed to look like that. She was still
retching. I knew about the Botox at her house, because she’d got me to try
it a few months before. I came that night under the pretence of wanting more.
She injected me before I… you know.’

Thóra closed her eyes. Would this
never end? She leaned out to get a view of the corridor, where Orri was asleep
in the pushchair and Sóley was sitting playing cards with the police
officer assigned to take care of her during the interrogation. Soon
Sóley would be too tired to keep playing, and Thóra had decided
to leave at that point, no matter what. She had had enough, and the man at her
side appeared not to need legal protection. He had decided to confess
everything, which meant that there was little use for her. No lawyer could help
him now.

There did not appear to have been any
mitigating circumstances. Thóra was feeling a little overwhelmed by
it all; she felt as though she’d been betrayed and made a fool of. What
she wanted most was to drop the case, but her conscience wouldn’t let
her. Gudni did not appear to feel any better. He had also been deceived, and
very publicly. The murderer seemed to have played everyone, except perhaps
Detective Stefán. But now the day of reckoning had arrived.
‘Markus, could you wind this story up?’ said Thóra, not
looking at him. ‘I have to go soon.’ She was still stunned at how
easily he had manipulated her.

‘Yes, let’s tie this up,’
said Gudni. ‘Did the estate agent lie for you? Did you pay him to say
he’d recognized your voice on the phone?’

‘No,’ said Markus. ‘He
really did hear my voice.’

‘Now the phone, or the Sim card in it,
was traced and found to have been located in the region of the town of Hella,
as I recall. You couldn’t have been there, Markus, if you’re
telling us the truth now. So clearly this estate agent didn’t speak
directly to you. Why did this man lie for you?
Because you or
your brother are good customers of his?
And who answered the
phone?’

‘I’m telling the truth, and so is
the estate agent. I did not have my phone with me,’ said Markus. He was
starting to sober up and kept licking his dry lips. ‘My son drove my car
east to the summerhouse and he had my phone with him. I was hoping that someone
would remember having seen my car during the trip, to make my alibi more
credible. Actually, no witness to the road trip could be found, but that
didn’t really make any difference. In any case, I had borrowed my
son’s car.’

‘I still don’t understand this
business with the phone call,’ said Gudni. ‘Does your son’s
voice sound like yours?’

‘No, not at all,’ replied Markus.
‘I’d prepared everything really well. I bought two mobile phones
and put untraceable pay-as-you-go Sim cards in them, which I bought at a petrol
station. Then I gave Hjalti two phones, mine and one of the ones I’d
bought, while I kept the other one myself. That evening I called my mobile
phone from Alda’s home phone, pretending to have left it at work so that
she wouldn’t suspect anything. Hjalti answered and we exchanged a few
words. Then we said goodbye and I got down to business.’ Markus paused
for a moment and Thóra wondered whether his conscience was troubling
him or if he was simply resting his voice.

He continued: ‘I’d made a rather
low bid on an apartment that I’d chosen randomly, with an estate agent I
know a little. I had to be sure that he could tell whether it was me on the
phone or someone else. It wouldn’t have done me any good to use someone
who couldn’t confirm it was me he’d spoken to. I let the bid stand
until eight o’clock and had the estate agent promise to call me on my
mobile immediately afterwards to let me know the result. Just before eight
Hjalti used the pay-as-you-go phone I’d given him to call the one that I
had, and we kept the connection open until the estate agent finally called.
Then Hjalti answered my mobile there near Hella, and put the phones together so
that the speaker of one touched the microphone of the other. That’s how I
could talk to the estate agent without my real whereabouts being traceable at
all. There were some glitches in the connection but I told him that it was
because I was on the road near Hella. He accepted that. I’d already tested
it out so I knew it would work.’

Thóra gaped at Markus. Naturally she
wanted to ask him about everything, but Gudni would have to take care of that
for the moment. Markus’s position was equally dire, whether Thóra
attended his interrogation or not. Her job was to support Markus, though it was
unclear what advice she could give him at that moment. The only thing she could
think of was to try to prove that Markus was unfit to stand trial, although he
appeared determined to tell the entire story to save Hjalti.

‘Did your son have any knowledge of
what was going on?’ asked Gudni.

‘No, all he knew was that if he did me
this favour, I would buy him an apartment out on the Islands. It’s been a
dream of his for a long time. I’m afraid he won’t get the chance to
enjoy his new place as he should have. He’s been a complete wreck, the
poor kid, since he realized what I was up to.’

‘But why did you do this, Markus? We
thought you were in love with Alda. You seemed to be the last person who would
wish her any harm.’ Gudni’s question was sincere.

‘I told you,’ Markus replied,
indignant. ‘I tried to avoid it, and I gave her lots of opportunities to
sort this out by some other means. It simply didn’t work out that
way.’

‘Sort what out?’ asked Gudni.

‘Oh, this thing with the head,’
said Markus, as if that explained everything. He looked from Gudni to
Thóra and back, but neither of them knew what he was trying to say. He
sighed and explained himself better: ‘I cut off the man’s head. Not
Alda. I did it for her, but as usual I got no thanks for it.’

‘You cut off the head,’ repeated
Gudni calmly. ‘Weren’t you in a drunken stupor at home when the
murders were committed?’

‘No, I wasn’t that bad,’
replied Markus. ‘I was drunk, but not as drunk as the others. I crashed
on the couch, but the phone woke me up in the middle of the night. It was
Geiri, Alda’s father, calling to ask Dad to come over. He wanted to
discuss Dadi’s offer to help them cover everything up. My mum also woke
up and came out of the bedroom. When she saw the blood on Dad, who’d been
sitting like a statue in the kitchen since he got back from the harbour, she
asked him what was going on. In the end he told her the whole story. They
didn’t know I was there, but I heard everything. I knew Dad and Geiri had
killed the men, and I knew what one of them had done to Alda. I also heard Dad
say where the bodies were, in
a fishing
smack tied to
the last pontoon in the harbour. I sneaked out and went down there, after Dad
had gone to Geiri’s place and Mum had run off crying to the bedroom. I
found the boat with the bodies on board, cut off the head and genitals of the
one I thought most likely to have raped Alda, and took them with me to show
her. I thought it would help her get over it.’